


You Can Pawn Your Watch and Chain

by APgeeksout



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s05e18 Point of No Return, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Put him back in the panic room.  And this time let’s don’t open the damn door for the thickheaded S.O.B.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Pawn Your Watch and Chain

**Author's Note:**

> Title snagged from Tom Waits' "That Feel"

“Put him back in the panic room.  And this time let’s don’t open the damn door for the thickheaded S.O.B.”  Bobby Singer’s tone was gruff, laced with the blend of frustration and terror and love that the brothers seemed to draw out of every person they touched more than fleetingly. 

Sam froze at his brother’s bedside, a fretful glance darting between their two remaining allies. 

Despite the bemused looks Sam and Dean had taken to trading over his head, Castiel knew he was becoming more adept at decoding human conventions, at noticing when words said more or less than they actually meant.  He understood that the sharpness of the older hunter’s words indicated not a simple lack of deference toward him or His Father (though that was undoubtedly present as well) but also acceptance, a degree of comfort with him as a member of their order.  One he could address on the same terms as he might either of the Winchesters.   

“I did retrieve him,” Castiel noted.  He wondered what the itinerant preacher had heard in his - _Jimmy’s_ – voice while he had addressed Dean in the alleyway.

“Then I guess we’d better keep you around,” Bobby said, “considering we’ve got another one of John’s wayward boys to fetch back.” 

Sam gave a quiet sigh of relief and stood, Dean’s right arm looped over his shoulders, his own arm steady around Dean’s middle, shifting his brother’s deadweight awkwardly against his side.  Castiel approached, reaching out, meaning to transport both brothers back into the iron room. 

Sam waved him off and took a quick step back for good measure. 

Based on the reactions of the humans he encountered lately and some furtive (and admittedly drunken) study of the reflection he cast in the mirrors of the brothers’ temporary rooms, Castiel had come to the realization that his own conflicts were more and more visible in Jimmy’s features.  He was becoming as readable to these men as they were to one another.  Perhaps if he asked, they might tell him whether the expression they saw when he considered this development was one of contentment or of discomfort or of something that they too lacked the words to name.

His confusion must have readily revealed itself, given the quickness with which Sam offered him the smile Castiel had seen him give to frightened survivors in the wake of an attack.  To his brother on occasions when Dean said “Sammy” either much more loudly or much more softly than usual. 

“It’s only a hundred feet,” Sam said, “and if you’re still with us, then we’re going to need all the juice you’ve got.” 

“I am always with you,” he said solemnly, “but I have no juice.  Though I did share some coffee with Bobby this afternoon.” 

Sam and Bobby exchanged that look which meant he’d misinterpreted in a way they found amusing. 

“Power.  Strength.  Reserves,” Bobby clarified, rolling back to the desk, ready to return to the crumbling volumes spread before him. 

“Dean would probably say “mojo,”” Sam added.  “Cas, you want to help me make sure I don’t drop him down the stairs?  He’s getting a little heavy.”

Castiel moved forward and stepped under Dean’s left arm.  Together they took Dean’s weight and bore him easily through the rooms of Bobby’s home.  The stairs were more difficult.  Rough-hewn, narrow, and steep, requiring them to move slowly, turn awkwardly, press more tightly together in order to navigate three abreast. 

Castiel remembered his first days back in this world, clumsy, constrained by his vessel, and wondered when that frustration had faded, when he had first come to feel comfortable, grounded in this limited, fragile body.  Why he had failed to recognize the shift until this moment, with Dean’s hair tickling against Jimmy’s cheek, his hand trapped between the brothers’ ribcages, one foot extended, seeking purchase in the darkness before them. 

Once they passed through the heavy iron doorway, Castiel relinquished his grip on Dean, watched Sam settle him on the low cot along the wall, gather the supplies he deemed necessary, and begin to care for his injuries.  Dean flinched away from the cold rag Sam used to wipe the blood from the swollen cut at the corner of his mouth, but did not otherwise stir.

“He will be bruised, but not broken.  I was able to exercise that much restraint.”

Sam must have read something in his manner again, since he looked up again with that smile meant to reassure.  “He’s had worse, Cas.  Hell, I’ve done worse to him before.  Might’ve done it again tonight if I’d been the one to drag him back.”  Sam tilted Dean’s head to examine the slice under his chin, broad palms cradling his face, and Castiel was awed again by the ever-present tenderness between them.  Even as Dean failed them, as Sam scrambled to atone for his own failings. 

The war they fought would perhaps be an altogether different one if his own brothers and sisters had that response to one another.   

Sam took one of Dean’s hands and closed a heavy silver cuff around his wrist, securing the other end to the metal frame of the cot.  Castiel could imagine Dean’s reaction to the restraint when he roused and suspected it would be better for all if he were doing something more productive when that moment arrived. 

Sam had yet to rise from his brother’s side.  Instead he leaned forward, head bowed and shoulders slumped, “We have to go get Adam,” he pronounced.  “We can’t let them have him.”

“I will go with you.  I will be as juicy as I can be,” Castiel said, gratified by Sam’s surprised bark of laughter. 

“That one was deliberate, wasn’t it?” he asked. 

“I am sure I do not know to what you are referring, Sam,” he said, carefully schooling Jimmy’s features. 

Sam rose, still smiling, and offered his hand.  “Thank you, Cas.  I’m glad you’re on our team.”

Castiel remembered his hesitation the first time Sam asked for a handshake, was suddenly shamed by Sam’s awe and his own reluctance on that day.  “As am I,” he said, closing Sam’s hand between both of Jimmy’s.  Both of his own.  
  
“I can take care of those for you,” Sam said, nodding toward the split and scraped skin of his knuckles, the remains of his last conversation with Dean Winchester.

Castiel loosed Sam’s hand and examined the wounds.  The bleeding had already stopped, the smallest scrapes already resealed.  “There is no need.  They will heal soon.  And in the meantime, I would-”  He looked from one brother to the other and tried to detect the workings of a plan, any plan, that had shepherded them into this room, this moment.  “I would like to feel them.”

 


End file.
